REPRESENTATIONS OF STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF BASIC EDUCATION ON LEARNING AND TEACHING THE LEXICON: THEORETICAL-METHODOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Although they constitute a relevant dimension of Portuguese Language (LP) teaching and learning, lexical studies are usually neglected by teachers and students of Basic Education. The demand for orthography is opposed to the insufficient exploration of activities (Neves, 1990) for this purpose and to the scarce use of pedagogical resources, such as dictionaries (in their myriad types and modalities) and games. This research, exploratory and empiric, evidenced different beliefs and representations (cf. Theory of Social Representations, by Moscovici 2003) that pervade the school ambient on dictionaries and on other pedagogical resources (grammars, textbooks, etc.). From the questionnaires given to the students (36) of elementary (E.F) and high school (E.M) and teachers (9) of schools in Minas Gerais, a mismatch was identified between the interests of these subjects of teaching action, with damage to language teaching: while the former prefer on-line and ludic materials, the latter adopt a more traditional approach - prevalence of synonymy/antonymy activities and an option for analog materials.